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    Four Days to Freedom
    Four Days to Freedom
    Four Days to Freedom
    Ebook95 pages1 hour

    Four Days to Freedom

    By Robert Luis Rabello

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    About this ebook

    As an insurgency spreads through the ancient city of Abelscinnia, its foreign governor orders security forces to clamp down and re-establish order. Yet, as the Azgaril tighten their control, the armed conflict intensifies. Anxious to put down the rebellion, paramilitary police detectives begin investigating the highly suspicious activities of a wealthy businessman named Tegene, son of Asabi.

    Why is he selling off his assets and converting his wealth to gold? Why is he buying heavy equipment and weaponry? None of his three wives know the extent of his plan, but as security tightens and the paramilitary police conduct their operations with increasingly less regard for citizen rights, Tegene’s women understand that their husband must take drastic action to preserve their family’s liberty.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Luis Rabello
    Release dateJun 12, 2012
    ISBN9781476359182
    Four Days to Freedom
    Author

    Robert Luis Rabello

    When I was a young boy, my favorite place in the entire world provided shelter from the blistering summer sun beneath twisted, tangled California Live Oaks. The arroyo lay carpeted in a crisp bed of fallen leaves, beneath which water always flowed. Toward dusk, living creatures moved from their dens and resting places--small amphibians, birds and mammals--coming out to hunt, or be hunted.The contrast between the busy streets of my home town and this quiet place, which lay within a thirty minute bike ride of my house, drew me with increasing frequency as I grew older. My mother never complained when I brought new 'pets' home. I kept tadpoles in a jar, toads and snakes in a terrarium, then dutifully returned them to the 'wild' after observing their behavior for a little while.The day I saw an army of bulldozers arrive, my heart sank. Although somebody once told me that the subspecies of California Live Oak native to the San Rafael hills where I grew up lived in no other place on earth, the giant machines knocked them to the ground without mercy. In their place, a massive, fetid, noisome mountain of garbage rose toward the sky. I vowed to leave that place and live somewhere far away, where my new 'favorite place' could remain pristine. I swore that I would forsake California for Canada.Although that memory has faded, and its impact muted by a myriad of different experiences, somehow it retains an influence over my attitude toward people and the world I observe. It could be a better place, if something within us would change--That restless desire to instigate a revolution lies at the core of what motivates me to write. I put words on paper in the naive belief that somehow you will be different after my work has been read. This is not arrogance,merely hope.

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      Book preview

      Four Days to Freedom - Robert Luis Rabello

      Four Days to Freedom

      a novella by

      Robert Luis Rabello

      This book is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.

      © 2012 by Robert Luis Rabello

      Smashwords Electronic Edition

      License Notes:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ISBN: 9781476359182

      All cover art and graphics

      by

      Robert Luis Rabello

      This book is dedicated to the memory of Manuel Silva,

      a true man of God who understood the value of storytelling.

      Table of Contents

      First Day A

      Second Day B

      Third Day C

      Fourth Day D

      First Day

      Heavily armed police from the governor's security department stormed the main station of the Eastern Saradon Railway in Abelscinnia. The sound of their booted feet and shouted commands from their officers echoed through the marble walkways and ornate, domed ceilings, inspiring panic among ordinary citizens who quickly discovered every exit had been blocked by paramilitary police brandishing loaded weapons.

      Inside, this private constabulary segregated everyone according to citizen status. All non-employees had to present identification and leave the station. Free citizens, those who'd been born within the last 40 years, had their names and business at the rail station recorded, while slaves–unfortunate people born before the Azgaril gained control of the region, who’d been forcibly tattooed and compelled to wear a leather choker at all times–faced immediate arrest if they didn’t actually work at the railway station, unless they had some way to prove that they were engaged in some legitimate activity.

      Searching for weapons and contraband, officers groped everyone–young and old–to ensure public safety. This humiliating process had become so commonplace, most Abelscinnians complied in meek silence. Their lack of courage had not been a cultural construct; bravery had long been snuffed out of most ‘Scinnian people by occupying Azgaril armies, as anyone who defied authority might disappear and never be seen again.

      A black-uniformed Azgar captain with swarthy, sweating skin and a short-cropped beard flashed his badge at a terrified clerk in the administration office and demanded to see the manager, while several of his deputies sealed off the area and held workers and passengers present for questioning. It's routine, the security captain reassured, speaking in a serious tone that completely belied the fear his gun-toting companions inspired.

      When the manager came out of his office, the captain saw his slave’s collar and hissed in disgust. He pushed a carbon paper form in front of the elderly man and tapped on its neatly typed list of suspects. Show me your records for every transaction involving any of these people for the last 30 days. Be quick, old man!

      The manager swallowed hard, scanning through the names. Among the notorious criminals and terrorists enumerated on the form, he recognized Tegene, son of Asabi, second wife of his beloved father. What was his name doing there? Tegene, a respected business man, had come into the office earlier that morning and paid a hefty deposit to have heavy mining equipment moved out to the hill country on the fringe of the Saradon. There was nothing irregular about that, was there?

      Right away, sir, the manager replied, retrieving a register from the check-in table. With the help of a secretary, he went through the list and wrote down every occasion that Tegene had used the Eastern Saradon Railway for transport during the specified time. He found only two other instances, and none of the other names appeared in the record.

      The police captain scowled. Things that looked ordinary on paper might conceal economic subversion or anti-government activities, but sentiment was hard to discern in a purchase order for transportation. When does this shipment load? he demanded, pointing to the suspicious entry.

      All the machinery must be on the platform before the Midwinter Feast, the nervous manager replied. Loading will be a delicate matter, as mining equipment is heavy.

      The feast would be held four days hence. I'll be back, the captain promised.

      A flash and the concussion from an explosion rattled windows. Gunfire chattered outside. Screams and disorder distracted the security police. Smoke filtered through the public square. As the police rushed out to investigate, swarms of armed men with their faces hidden behind bandannas opened fire from the narrow alleys, rooftops and balconies around the square. Bodies fell. Blood stained the ancient cobblestones. A free woman, who'd made the unfortunate choice to cast a coin in the square's fountain for good luck before she went shopping, fell face-first into the water as a stray bullet punched through her back. Within moments, a cascade of pink liquid flowed over the statuary.

      Angry police flexed their formidable muscle and began shooting at anything that moved. Too many incidents of this kind had claimed the lives of their fellow officers in recent months, and as the violence escalated, so did the brutality of their response. While the captain used the office phone to call in the Eastern Volunteer Brigade–a private security force–for help, his men secured the square and struggled to restore order.

      For nearly an hour, fighting raged in the streets. Gunfire sounds, grenade and bomb explosions punctuated human screaming as a brutal, building-to-building battle raged between masked insurgents and the occupying police force, allied with well-trained troops from the Eastern Volunteer Brigade. Not even the midday call to prayer halted the carnage.

      Abelscinnia had once been a beautiful city. Graceful frame bridges arched over the water to connect fifteen islands that arose like ramparts in the midst of the Dagon River. Fruit trees and fragrant, flowering shrubs provided food and shelter from the Daystar’s heat. Amid the steel and glass buildings with hammered copper rooftops that shimmered in the daylight, boutique cafes clustered around expansive patios, lush gardens and water fountains. Elevated monorail transit trains quietly and efficiently whisked their passengers around the sprawling city. Abelscinnia grew into a dense, multi-layered urban paradise until the only dimension available for growth was vertical. As tall buildings reached for the heavens, the city grew into its role as the most significant financial center in the east.

      Sited at a three-way crossroads between east, west and north, the town had long been prosperous. Its trendy, highly-cultured population of tall, muscular, dark-skinned people had preserved their language and traditions for over a thousand years, and the city’s citizenry gently dominated weaker nations that arose along the shores of life-giving rivers in this dry region. Abelscinnia’s universities ranked among the best anywhere. It had a library collection that included original documents whose origins reached far into antiquity. Abelscinnian traditions of law and separation of government powers set a high standard that influenced many other nations. Though their society was strictly patriarchal, women had long enjoyed rights in Abelscinnia that didn’t develop elsewhere for hundreds of years. Yet blackened,

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